


Till The Water's All Long Gone

by CaughtAlwaysSleeping



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Breaking Plates and stuff, Crying, Fits of anger, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Punching The Wall, and having a bit of a breakdown, basically lucas having a really bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 10:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14162955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaughtAlwaysSleeping/pseuds/CaughtAlwaysSleeping
Summary: I wanted to explore Lucas' feelings of grief and his desperation to get her back after his moms passing.Thus spawned this sad piece on my sad trash man.





	Till The Water's All Long Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Decemberists song of the same name  
> I was listening to the album on repeat but this song (as well as Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect) really stuck out to me
> 
> Y'all can pry Lucas from my cold dead hands i swear to fuck.  
> I know he's done bad things but I will not let that stop me from enjoying this character for his good aspects.

“I want to find a way into a different plane, to pull her from that one back here.” Lucas padded after Lucretia, explaining his plan as he kept pace with her. It was all theoretical at the moment, but as soon as he got permission, he would start on his plan right away. “Lucretia, you of all people should know that it wasn’t her time-”

“Lucas, if I've told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times not to call me that anymore. My name is Madame Director and you will call me by it or not address me at all.” Lucretia, the Director, whatever, says.

“Madame Director,” Lucas hisses, “will you listen to me!” But she talks over him again and it’s infuriating.

“You know your mother was my closest friend. You know I’m just as upset over this as you.” She says deliberately. Her shoes make soft scuffing noises against the linoleum floors and at that moment in time, it couldn’t be more grating against Lucas’ ears. She keeps walking down the hall and they keep scuffing and it makes him angry.

“You don’t know! You can’t possibly fathom this. You think losing your BFF is bad? She was my fucking mom!” Lucas screams. His hands are curled into his hair, covering his ears from the awful scuffling. He’s panting, anger making him short of breath, making his eyes unfocus, making them swell up with tears.

He can’t let her see him like this. He wasn’t some crybaby. He turns on his heel and takes a few steps away from her. Tries to blink the tears away, get rid of them, but it only makes them fall faster. He mutters a curse and wishes for the hundredth time this minute that his mom was still alive and he didn’t have to have this conversation.

This, at last, makes Lucretia stop in her tracks, ceases the sound of her shoes that was making him crazy. “Lucas,” she starts. He can see her tentatively reaching a hand out to him from his peripheral vision.

He doesn’t want to be comforted. He wants to be angry at something, even if it’s Lucretia because the expanse of sadness before him is too daunting to get close to. But the Director seems intent on reaching out to him, grounding him when he wants to float aimlessly through the astral realm, and he steps farther away.

“Don’t touch me.” He doesn’t know if he intends for it to come out as a growl, but it does, and it makes The Director pause. His hands have traveled from his head to his chest, fingers carving into his ribs. He wants to break them, wants to shatter his own body so he might be able to find Maureen in the astral realm. He wants to feel something break under his fingertips, wants to do something other than crumple in on himself in front of the Director like a crybaby.

“Lucas, I think you would benefit from seeing someone about this. I understand you’re upset, but there is nothing I can do to remedy this situation.” She pulls her hand down and clasps them together in her lap. “I hope you find your peace with her death.” And with those hollow well wishes, she excuses herself and walks continues walking to her destination.

“At least I’m trying to get her back!” He yells at her. She must have heard him, but makes no indication of it. Part of Lucas hopes she’s burning with shame for her lack of will to change the unfair situation.

He stays in the empty hallway for a while, trying to calm down. But once the object of his anger has gone all he has left is the emptiness that he’s been avoiding. He scampers home, walking at first, then running full sprint as if something was chasing him. Maybe something was.

When he gets there his anger returns, fully welcomed, and Lucas lets go of his control. He ransacks his kitchen, taking his mugs and throwing them as hard as he can to the wall, letting all of them shatter. The plates get similar treatment and then it’s done. When the last plate splinters into fragmented pieces he comes to his senses for a moment, realizes that this heap of broken porcelain was not just his, but the plates and mugs of his mother.

The sadness in him rears its head and snaps at him, almost as fierce as his anger. For a few moments, the only thing he can feel is scared, scared of his destructive anger, scared of his own sadness. His anger turns on him like a snarling beast and bites him, thrashes him around like a limp ragdoll. In an instant, he clamps his jaw tight and punches the wall, again and again, and again. He can feel the pain and it feels good, feel right.

Of course, it’s right. Why shouldn’t he be hurt, when he couldn’t save his own mother? Why shouldn’t he pay for her death in an offering of blood smudged on the wall? He tries to put his hand through the wall, break through the thing like it was the barrier between the living and the dead, break through to his mother on the other side, but he just isn’t strong enough. He stops ramming his fist into the wall, uncurling his fingers and taking a look at the mess of his knuckles. The skin is split and bleeding, but nothing feels broken when he moves it.

Slowly, he sinks to the floor, holding his bloody hand in his other. He allows himself this moment to embrace the void, to see if it is conquerable. It washes over him as soon as it’s given the chance, brings a tidal wave of tears to his eyes. So Lucas lets them come, he sits on the floor sobbing until he can’t breathe, until his hand burns with the feeling of his tears splashing into the open wounds. At this, he pauses to gasp, flounder about trying to get air back in his lungs. And when they’re full to the brim he launches right back into bawling, his good hand gripping the wrist of his other and holding it in place.

This time when he can’t breathe he stops crying. He doesn’t feel better, but his head sure does hurt. It pounds, competing with the throbbing pain in his hand. He stands and walks calmly to the bathroom where the first aid kit is kept. He doesn’t need the Director to clear his every move. Doesn’t need her poking in places she doesn’t want to look. He’ll do this by himself if she doesn’t want to help.

He washes his hand with the same amount of warmth his mother would. Runs lukewarm water over it to clear the blood, makes his own soft noises between hisses at the sting of antiseptic, purposely places bandages, and lift his hand to his mouth to administer a soft kiss.

Looking up into the mirror, he sees some other version of himself. His hair is wild and messed up from his earlier fit with the Director. His eyes look red and irritated from his crying session. Something about his face seems wrong. The parts that resemble his mothers seem like they’re fading. It’s not a good look.

He vows to bring his mother back, and the reflection in the mirror vows to hold him to it.


End file.
